Perspectives

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McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge has just finished a brand new visitor center and office building when Ike hit.  It was so new that they hadn’t even finished installing all of the interpretive exhibits.  The above image is what the facility looks like now.  What is even more amazing, is that this was primarily water damage. You can’t see it from here, but the roof is entirely intact, including the solar panels.  Across the road is the Gulf of Mexico and during Ike, the storm surge simply swept through this brand new building.  To give you an idea of scale, it is 14 feet to the base of the second floor.  

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The town of Sabine Pass was located on the really bad side of the storm and took a really hard hit.  This was especially devastating as this area had only just been able to recover from Hurricane Rita in 2006.  I don’t have any data to back this up, but after visiting Sabine Pass twice now, I don’t believe there are more than a handful of buildings in the area that are still structurally sound.  

Just outside Sabine Pass is a small patch of woods, Sabine Woods, owned by the Texas Ornithological Society (TOS) and protected as an important migration stop for songbirds as they reach the Texas coast after crossing the Gulf of Mexico during spring migration.  Like the preserves at High Island, this small patch of woods is often the first trees the birds can land in to feed before continuing north.  The second panorama above is taken in Sabine Woods.  Here the damage was different from that at High Island.  There was very little debris: a couple hoses, a couple big anchor lines, some small trash.  A few large trees were down, but mostly the big trees did fine.  During my first visit, Ron Weeks (president of TOS) and I had 7 or 8 species of warblers feeding in the few remaining green oak trees.  What was so impressive though was the power of water.  I know I say it a lot, but it blew me away.  Small shrubs, grass, and other undergrowth was devastated.  The few small ponds were now filled with saltwater and required pumping.  However, overall, the woods weren’t too badly damaged and should once again be a haven for birds this spring.

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After Hurricane Ike barreled through the towns of Bolivar, Glaveston, Sabine Pass, and other areas along the Upper Texas Coast, we were all inundated with photographs and video of the devastation to homes, business, and other manmade structures throughout the region.  What didn’t receive much attention was the impact of Ike on the numerous natural areas scattered along the coast.  I set out to try and document some of this impact and will continue to create images as the areas recover from the damage.

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Part of this project is to use traditional still photography but I am trying to incorporate a new technique as well, spherical panoramas.  I first began this technique this past summer in Costa Rica while working on Canopy in the Clouds and am continuing to expand on my skills.  Spherical panoramas capture the world in a unique way and I am especially interested in how this type of imagery can be used as a teaching tool.  I will write much more about this technique, my setup, and my plans for how I will use it in the future, but today I just wanted to show you a few images.

The top image is taken from what remains of Front Street in High Island.  The huge debris pile is on the edge of the Texas Ornithological Society’s Hooks Woods Bird Sanctuary.  Much of the debris, including the side of the house came from the lots on the other side of the street (towards the sun) where there is no longer anything but a concrete slab.

The lower image is Highway 87 just past the entrance to McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge outside of Sabine Pass.  The section of the highway between Sabine Pass and High Island has been closed to traffic for several years because of movement of the dunes.  However while the road may not have been maintained, it has not completely collapsed but rather been buried by sand.  The storm surge associated with Hurricane Ike simply ate into the dunes, undercut the road, and you see what remains.  Previously, where you see water by the side of the road was a fragile, yet complete, dune.